14 
The Presidential Address . 
the peaty pine forests of Denmark, bringing with them cows, 
sheep, pigs and goats, wheat, barley, flax and perhaps pulse, 
and even fruit trees. 7 Our first enquiry must he what was the 
state of vegetation in Essex at this commencement of 
agriculture. We may take it that, drainage, fen reclamation 
and tillage excepted, the surface soils of our county were then 
as they are now, i. e. (with the exception of two small areas 
of Chalk down, in the south and in the north-west) clays of 
Eocene or Glacial age, stiff loams or gravels, having an 
undulating surface, but only a slight general slope, covered 
the whole area, abounding in marsh and streams and 
' surrounded on two sides by the gravels and peats of the 
Thames flats, then probably frequently inundated, and by 
the muddy levels of our eastern coast, which has probably 
altered much in outline and but little in vegetation. 
The astronomical causes that produced the Glacial Epoch 
were no longer in operation; but the climate may then have 
been slightly colder than now, and the rainfall was in all 
probability greater, as evidenced to some extent by the more 
general and more rapid growth of peat. Undoubtedly, from 
that day to this, man by clearing forest, by draining land, 
and by embanking rivers and the sea, has exerted a most 
important influence upon both the moisture in the air and 
that in the soil. 8 
7 See Green well and Rolleston, ‘ British Barrows.’ 
8 “It is certain that the island when it fell under the Roman power 
was little better in most places than a cold and watery desert. Accord¬ 
ing to all the accounts of the early travellers, the sky was stormy and 
obscured by continual rain, the air chilly even in summer, and the sun 
during the finest weather had little power to disperse the steaming mi sts. 
The trees gathered and condensed the rain ; the crops grew rankly, but 
ripened slowly, for the ground and the atmosphere were alike overloaded 
with moisture.” Elton, op. cit., p. 228. “ In Mauritius, once the 
sanatorium of India, the climate has undoubtedly deteriorated, as the 
air has become drier from the removal of the forests, and the springs 
are drying up.Humboldt mentions that the water supply of 
Venezuela had decreased, from the clearing of some of the forests; 
whilst some of the West Indian Islands, in spite of a tropical rainfall, 
have been reduced to arid sandy wastes. South Africa has suffered 
much in climate from the destruction of forests, the rainfall having 
become somewhat less and very irregular.”—“ The Science and Teaching 
of Forestry,” ‘ Journal of Forestry,’ vol. vi. 
